Like many people I am looking forward to the six nations rugby championship starting this weekend. However, I cower in trepidation at the impending barrage of metaphors curtesy of the many pundits that will be lining up to express their opinions.

The one that makes me cringe is " .... will be asking ...... questions this weekend" or words to that effect. What are the questions? Are the inquisitors planning to score lots of points while the full-ack is puzzling over what the capital of Tibet is?

Also I cring when I hear someone say " ..... is literally ***** " where ***** is a metaphor. For example: The manager is literally over the moon at the result today.   Does that mean that the manager has commissioned the building of a Saturn 5, got it built, flew over to Cape Canaveral, and got to the moon in five minutes after the result? How would he literally do this??????

I am sure that therre are many evren better examples of use of literal metaphors.